Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

If the Deputy had waited he might have heard some of the proposals. Instead, however, he runs away when I get to my feet to address some of the points he raised. Deputy Michael Ahern could not be bothered listening. Once again, he has shown a failure to understand the dynamics of the real issues in the Six Counties, because fiscal controls were never transferred to the Assembly.

I invite Deputies Michael Ahern and Frank Fahey to read the policies and proposals that Sinn Féin made in the run up to the budget, which outlined in quite a lot of detail exactly where the money would come from. This was before the Government put us into hock to the tune of nearly €80 billion. I would advise both Deputies to examine the job creation strategy - when people are employed they pay taxes - rather than losing money by encouraging people to emigrate, and thus lose the investment the State has made in young people.

Both Deputies would much prefer to sling mud and run away. They have no understanding of the economics of this State because they have been in a Government that has destroyed the economy. This is especially so for Deputy Fahey who does not understand financial issues. Otherwise he would have properly addressed the lost at sea issue by giving the proper compensation to that family in Donegal who, because of his ignorant attitude towards them, have suffered a loss. He was the same Minister who was involved in giving away Ireland's natural resources to the likes of the Shell Corporation in the Corrib gas field. Many other exploration companies are set to benefit from changes that Deputy Fahey, as a Minister, made to legislation in the past.

That is the very same attitude the IMF has when it loans money to African countries. It opens up markets to big corporations so that they can rob such countries' natural resources. Since its foundation, the IMF has been an odious institution. It has ruined many an African country. Rather than helping to develop such countries, it has sent them backwards so that they are in a state of under-development. It has prevented sustainable economies from being developed in many of those countries.

The legislation before us is to amend the agreements. It is being presented as a Bill to help southern hemisphere countries, in particular in Africa but also in South America. However, it will only make a minuscule change to the voting strengths of those countries in the IMF. An additional 1.6% will be added to the voting strengths of the southern hemisphere countries. That will still leave the northern developed world with 60% of the voting rights, even though it only makes up 15% of the IMF's membership.

The Government's other selling point has been that there will be an increase in Ireland's voting strength, which amounts to an additional, albeit minuscule, change to our voice. That will lead to a reduction in the interest rate Ireland will have to now pay for the €22.5 billion this Government has hung around the necks of every man, woman and child in this State.

We must not forget that it is not just a minuscule reduction in the interest rate. We still have to pay the lump sum. The payment and the loan itself has been tied to austerity measures, some of which we have seen already and some of which we will see in forthcoming budgets over the next two or three years. I refer to the wage cuts, the social welfare cuts we have already seen, cuts in public service numbers and the cuts in services such as Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann in which the State is reducing its investments. I refer also to the reduction in the capital spend on new schools, hospitals and the like which the Minister said will be funded by the International Monetary Fund, IMF. There will be no such thing. The vast majority of the money we are talking about is going to bail out the bondholders, those people who gambled their own money and yet expect to be paid by the Irish taxpayer. That is where the money is going. Similar to the position with our National Pensions Reserve Fund, it is not going into a productive investment environment. It is not being invested in the future of Ireland. It is being invested and given away to German, Spanish and French financial institutions which were gambling with their own companies' futures.

What should have happened in terms of all of that is that they should have been burned, so to speak. It is not just Sinn Féin who have called for that. Many an economist has called for it also because that is what happens. When people speculate and gamble, there is always a possibility of loss unless they speculate and gamble in Ireland where this Government is willing to bail them out lock, stock and barrel.

The other changes we are seeing already is the undermining of the investment in community service. There was never enough investment, yet under the austerity measures tied to the IMF we are seeing an undermining of those services. We are seeing the proposals and the guarantee by the Government to the IMF and the European Central Bank, ECB, that water charges and possibly a property tax will be introduced.

In every country into which it has managed to gets its claws the IMF has undermined the democracy and the public services in those countries because it has taken away their sovereignty and the power to decide for themselves how to spend the money and use the natural resources of those countries. The example of Argentina is one that Ireland and any future Government should examine to see how we can extract ourselves from this odious deal to which the Government has tied us.

I believe that as soon as we regain our economic sovereignty, for once we will have the capability of building a proper future. I say to the Minister of State that it is not too late to row back on that. Despite the fact that we have already downloaded huge sums of money this month we can return it. We can go back and ensure that the €20 billion or €30 billion that will go to the bondholders does not go to them but is instead invested in job creation and in creating a proper, nationalised State bank which will have the function of ensuring that industry and the public are properly served rather than what we have seen in recent years.

The IMF has imposed its diktats around the world and has facilitated globalisation, as I referred to earlier. Anything to do with the IMF should be opposed because that institution is an example of modern colonialism and imperialism because it dominates through debt. It controls the resources to benefit those who have pillaged those countries. It has left many a country denuded of natural resources and of the skills and powers to decide for themselves and made them dependent upon the hand-outs from the IMF.

I urge the Minister of State to try to undermine the IMF as much as we can in the next year or so, bring it down and put the powers the world has invested in the IMF in the hands of the United Nations because that is where the mechanism should be located with the changes and the reforms that are required to democratise that institution.

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